


And This One Was Just Right

by Trapelo_Road475



Category: Hockey RPF, TV Commercials
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trapelo_Road475/pseuds/Trapelo_Road475
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JC Petit, a hotshot from the minors, and Sergei Pukysin, just signed out of the Superleague, play together for the Winnipeg Jets.  A perfectly ordinary combination, aside from the two of them being a combined one-hundred-and-eight-and-a-half centimeters tall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And This One Was Just Right

**Author's Note:**

> In 2007 & 2008, McDonald's ran a series of commercials promoted their mini-sticks (player & goalie) and mini-helmets. They featured a miniature goalie, and a miniature forward. 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIGHJm5nxM  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDA8JB-jzOI

JC Petit doesn't want to be thought of as arrogant. He doesn't think he is, particularly - he is a goalie, and he'll grant crazy, because that's part of the job description, but arrogant? He puts on a bit of a show for the fans, that's true. And he runs his mouth more than he really should. But who can blame him?

He is, after all, just barely fifty centimeters tall. Thumbsters are not supposed to play hockey, not with the big boys - not in the _NHL_. There are leagues, for men and boys like him. Girls, too, these days.

But JC Petit has always been - ambitious, he thinks. Leave it at _ambitious_. Not arrogant. 

There are men - even in the minors - who could split him into quarters with a slipped skate. He knows that. He shudders, remembering Johnny Smalls in the Shrunk Line League in Saskatchewan. What a mess. All over the papers, poor Johnny, got in a fight with a Fullie after the game and wound up knocked from the boards right to the ice, splat and done for. 

He's lucky to have gotten to the minors at all. The real minors, not the Shrunk Line or the Quebec Miniature Leagues, or his hometown Terrebone Ti' Combat. Even luckier, a shot - even for an exhibition game or two - in the real leagues. Winnipeg's not much, it's no Montreal, but it's lightyears away from Terrebone, from playing in ten-dollar-a-game Thumbster leagues and living in a converted workshed behind the arena because it's cheaper to dorm twenty Thumbsters in a barely-insulated box than it is to treat them like players, like people. 

Never again, JC Petit thinks. He's gonna show them. He's not arrogant, he's just that good. He showed them all up his first practice, and they're starting to come around. Instead of a fruit crate, he's got a dressing stall. Smaller, but a real one. Dylan Conway even put bright reflective tape around it, just to be sure everyone noticed he was there. Dylan's alright, for a Fullie. 

Jason Lariviere's an okay guy, too - gives him rides to games and practices. Understands it's not a mooching thing. Thumbsters can't drive, not in Manitoba anyway. Not most places. It's a liability. Lariviere gave him his guest room and speaks proper French with him. So Lariviere's okay. For a Fullie.

Things are going alright, two months into the season, and that's when Sergei shows up.

Sergei. Sergei Pukysin, out of the superleague, fancy on his feet and fancy with his stick and arrogant, JC can't possibly see how anyone could think he's the one full of himself, not after seeing Sergei.

JC wants badly not to like him, but it's hard not to feel the tiniest scrap of sympathy - he's another Thumbster, in the real leagues, the Fullie leagues. His English isn't too good but, well, JC's isn't always so hot, either. And he can't drive. Turns out, Thumbsters - Liliputs, they call them over there - can't drive in Russia, either. Turns out, Sergei's got just as hard a time finding a place to stay as he did. 

Turns out, Sergei's really not a bad guy. Off the ice, he's even shy. They talk a little. JC's been desperate to talk to another Thumbster, but very quickly they just talk like two men, as if they weren't surrounded by Fullies all the time. They stop talking about what a pain it is to live in a world designed for Fullies, and just talk like hockey players.

JC finds out that Sergei has been sleeping in Vladimir Korolov's car. And, big as Vladdy's car is, it's Winnipeg in November, and it's cold. Sergei comes to practice in the morning shivering, and doesn't shower, which is probably just as well - JC doesn't like showering at the arena, either. It's just too open, and too cold.

And, well, on a personal note, it's a little difficult not to feel the tiniest bit inadequate when your teammates cocks are all bigger than your leg. Both your legs. JC is aware that there's some Thumbsters who like getting it on with Fullies (he accidentally found a porno video of it when he was twelve on his dad's laptop, and practically jumped on the keyboard trying to turn it off), but personally, he can't imagine why. They're nice enough, he supposes, but the logistics alone are just too much. 

So Sergei - for nothing more than warmth, he asks Sergei if he'd like to stay in Rivvy's guest room with him. 

"I can have Rivvy put t'door, down the middle, you know - make it separate, for me and you. But Vladdy's car, you know, too cold."

"I sleep in worse," Sergei says, arms crossed firmly over his chest. "Like in Army, Liliputs, we get put in horse stable."

"They put you in t'army?"

"Of course. All of us, do our part. Liliputs very smart, very quick, we are good spies."

"Ah, pff, and you still you get shit on by the horses, oui?"

Sergei huffs. "Good practice for pucks."

JC can't help himself. He laughs. And then Sergei - Sergei buckles into a laugh, too. 

"Come on, oui? Rivvy won' mind. Rivvy won' notice, even."

Sergei accepts. Trying not to smile. 

Rivvy had moved the Fullie-sized bed out of the room three days after JC agreed to stay, and JC used his first paycheck to buy a Thumbster-made bed. Patrick McLellan asked if he couldn't just buy a doll bed, and JC wanted so badly to hit him and hit him good, but instead he dumped a cup of jello into each of PattyMac's skates. Fullies didn't understand. Just use doll furniture, doll clothes. They were not dolls, they were people, they wanted real things, not baby-cradles or dolly-beds. Shirts that did not look like they came out of some weird 1970s Barbie timewarp. Shoes that fit. All his goalie gear was Thumbster made. 

He wondered what they did in Russia.

"I am sorry," he explains, to Sergei, "I only have the one bed, I - you can have the one bed, for now, if you want, til - well see, there is a store, and - they are good people, you know? Make a nice one for you."

"I sleep on floor," Sergei mutters gruffly, like a soldier, but he is blushing. 

"Oh and - and, there is, in t'guest bathroom, the shower custom, with heaters. No freeze."

Sergei looks openly grateful. 

JC realizes how very long it's been since he's spoken with a Thumbster, really had time to sit down and talk with someone his own age and size. "I am glad you said yes," he says. Softly. Awkwardly. He gestures toward the guest bathroom. Rivvy took the door off. The door didn't make sense, when he lived alone. "Towels - "

Sergei murmurs something in Russian. JC wants to hope it's thank you. 

Later, Sergei comes out of the washroom, not humming like usual, but quiet, and wrapped in several thick, fluffy, Thumbster-sized towels. JC is pounding out an email on his laptop with the modified tapper that Dylan had made for him. Dylan is clever at building things. Says he used to build model ships - and then he'd look aghast as if he'd said something terribly offensive. Dylan was always trying not to offend. If he was a Thumbster, he would do a roaring trade, and that's not something JC says easily.

"Is nice," Sergei says. "Is very warm."

JC closes the email. "Oui, isn't it best? Ugh, all I want, growing up, was a good bath, not to freeze after..."

Sergei smiles. "Same. I was young - oh, so poor, you not get any Liliput things, not like here, you dress in grocery sack until winter, then in grocery sack with cottonballs inside. Babushka - make me coat once, from ah - mitten, that was deer outside and rabbit inside. She work so hard, so long - I feel like tsar, you know." Sergei looks distant and fond. 

"My uncle made my first set of pads," JC says. "Buckskin and sofa stuffing."

"Is very brave, Liliput play goal."

"Some say 'stupid'."

"Always is goalie crazy, big-size or little."

JC grins. "True the world across, oui?" 

"Big world. Not for us."

"Been a while since I get to talk to somebody like me."

"Same, too. After Army, with Liliput, I go play, and then I come to superleague. So many big big men. I sleep at rink, in trainer's office. Always cold. Ah, but this - " Sergei falls flat back onto his bed and JC stifles a laugh. "So warm! Is best."

JC rolls his eyes. "Lucky, soon, you will get your own bed."

"Nah. Like this bed, is very good." 

Sergei is probably joking with him. JC grabs a discarded towel and thwaps him with it, just to be sure. Sergei grabs it, Sergei is laughing. JC tackles him to the bed and they wrestle. 

Sergei, suddenly underneath him, isn't arrogant at all. He has pale, high-boned Russian features, bright blue eyes, hair golden like sunshine on pond ice. JC has been aching inside to be close to anyone who isn't a Fullie. PattyMac suggested he go out with one of the team groupies, but he's been with Fullie women before - at least, the kind who like Thumbster men - and he knows they're mostly into having you crawl inside them, and it's just sticky and awful. (He knew a man in the Quebec Miniature league who swore he'd been with a woman who was a squirter, who nearly drowned him. JC was not sure he believed the man, either that he'd been with a squirter, or been with a woman at all). 

JC has never had anybody special. It's hard to be anybody special, when you're fifty-four-and-a-half centimeters tall (he is particular about the half). Sergei touches his face. JC kisses him, of a sudden.

"Oh," Sergei says. "Is welcome to team?"

JC shrugs. Feels his cheeks burn. "I am happy you say yes, to come with me."

"I like say yes. You very nice."

"Spies are subtle, no?"

"Not in Army anymore. In National Hockey League." Sergei looks pleased with himself.

"Welcome to the NHL," JC says, and he kisses Sergei. "Welcome to Winnipeg." Another kiss. "Welcome to my house." Kiss. "Welcome to my bed." A grin. A kiss. Sergei wags his eyebrows. 

"Too many big men in Superleague," Sergei shakes his head. "Not want so many big men. Just want - " Sergei touches his chest. Slides a hand up his shirt. "Want right-size."

"Oui," JC says. "Exactament. Right size. Perfect size."

Sergei grins and squirms under him, arrogant Russkie Liliput that he is. 

JC Petit thinks, of all the men he's skated with, Sergei Pukysin is the first one he's not going to have to prove himself to. No, no - not too little, not too large, they are both just right-size.


End file.
